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'™ — THE SUNDAY STAR, WASH] HEART,S HARBOR——H Story of the This Story Upholds the Quality of The Star Magazine’s First-Run Fiction. Another Tale, With First Publication, Will Appear in the Magazine Next . Sunday. APT. DADDY sat on an iron bench at the Old Sailors’ Home, high above the great harbor. His gaze alternated from the distant sea horizon to the battered dog-eared notebook in his lap. From time to time with affectionate care he jotted down the thoughts which his lonely communion with the sea seemed to inspire—thoughts which later were to be rewritten in the form of letters to some unknown recipient and curiously enough to those who watched this daily routine of the old sailor—never sent. Alice Arno, at her typewriter in front of the window in the executive office of the Home, looked up now and then from her work to observe the old captain crouched over his note- book or staring out to sea. Affection shone in her face as she regarded him. This old sailor, in their daily chats, had become more like a beloved parent than any one she had ever know in her solitary working life. The puzzle that always presented itself when she watched him, either on the bench or in the writing room, occupied Alice's mind this morning. Soon he would come in, stop for a few words and some notepaper at her desk, go to his table and continue his writing. Then he would seal the envelope and slip it in his inside pocket. Never once had he stopped at the hall mailbox and posted one. He never went down into town and no one called on him. The thing had intrigued Alice’s fancy. To whom were the letters written and why were they never mailed? “Hello, Capt. Daddy!” she said as he came in. “I'm just back this morning. Have you missed me?” Capt. Daddy was Alice’s special name for him. - «Deed I have, Alice honey. 'Taint a day for me at all without that smile o’ yours that's sweet an’ smooth as a seagull's wing. How was the vacation, girlie?” “Oh, swell, Capt. Daddy!” “Did you find you a sweethart layin’ to in the offin’ somewhere?” A rare smile lent charm to the rugged features. “you would ask me that, wouldn't you? I've a notion to tell you to mind your own business,” she mischievously replied. “But if you must know—well, I may have a sample one to show you soon—if some other aspirant dog‘sn't beat me to him.” “Trust ye for that, Alice. 2,1 listen, dear! If ye love him an’ he loves ye too, don't ye ever leave him. Let no gale o' wind, however wicked, blow the two o’ ye apart.” Capt. Daddy crossed the hall to the writing room, sat at a worn table, hunched a massive head well down into great shoulders and with his notebook before him commenced to write the usual let- ter. The poignancy of his concluding words struck in on Alice. “Key words to the puzzle of the letters that are never mailed,” she mused. A keen desire to share his confidence, and, if possible,” help him to happiness, filled her heart. She was his only friend in the Home. To others he was a courteous recluse. LICE now and again glanced at Capt. Dad- dy, bent over his letter. There was some- thing loving and protecting In the curve of the broad back. And a glow lighted the face; kindly creases were etched in the forehead and corners of eyes and mouth as he wrote. She knew the attitude. Candles of contentment seemed to light his soul. He lived a life with- in a life. Spiritual gold fiowed irom the point of his pen. After a while he rose, leaving his letter on the ink-stained blue blotter, and approached the hall. “Finish, Capt. Daddy?” “No, honey.” The forthright face, tanned by blazing suns of many lands; lashed into roughness by the spray and spume of high, engufling waves, flushed like that of a youngster apprehended in the act of sneaking out of coun- try school. “I * * * why, Alice; I'm on way to the garden to get a small posy and anchor it in my letter.” Tightness clutched the girl's throat. She bent over her typewriter without a word, feel- ing that she had thoughtlessly invaded sacred reserves.” A stiff and gusty bit of wind was on the rampage outside. Both the writing room win- dows were open; one at each end of the line of three writing tables. Alice, tapping away, heard the crisp rattle of paper. She looked round just in time to see Capt. Daddy's let- ter being whisked up from the blue blotter and severely wafted through one of the win- dows. She rushed out to the garden where he stood yearningly regarding the white caps whipping up beyond the bay. He held the slim tip of fringe of larkspur bloom tightly in his fingers. “Captain,” breathless from running, ‘your Jetter's just blown out the window. I saw it go. Come round the other side and we’ll look. There’s a lull now. It can't be far off.” «S0?” He turned, gently surprised. “Well, Alice, we won't search too long in this scamp- erin’ blow. Heaven knows where it's flown now—maybe off the edge o’ the ledge an’ down on the beach where 'twill be frail flotsam for the risin’ tide. Never mind, dear, I'll write me another one.” They hunted unsuccessfully. “I'm off to write another one, Alice. "Tis like lookin’ for a stormy petrel among warm weath- er islands. Don't bother, my dear.” They returned to their desks. All morning a queer, blurred, intangible vision had nagged Alice’s brain, like a hesitating hand groping for a familiar doorlatch in the dark. With it came the irritating mental sensation that comes from an inability to recall a known name, phrase or slice of slang. There was an unmistakable resemblance be- tween Capt. Daddy and some one she had known somewhere at some time. It kept tug- ging insistenly at her consciousness ‘as sne worked, a persistent undercurrent. She felt that when she had identified this vague resem- blance she could bring happiness to Cant. Daddy. While she lay beneath a clump of pine trees munching her lunch, Alice gave herself up to the unraveling of this elusive likencss. Capt. Daddy and who? She felt that to remember would be to solve the mystery of the letters that were never mailed. Her eyes dwelt unseeingly on an adjacent Beginning and End of the Universe Continued from Fourth Page nology, Pasadena, Calif., who is one of the world’s leading authorities on thermodynamics. He feels that there is a possibility that the universe might go on expanding until it reaches a point at which it begins to contract, reducing in size until it undergoes a sort of re- birth, after which it would continue to expand and contract again and again. If this is so, the human race is now living fn a universe that started to expand only a relatively short time ago. But that does not mean that the stars are not very old, as they may have been formed in some previous cycle of the universe. This Tolman universe is like a toy rubber balloon that is forever being blown up and deflated. It solves other dilemmas besides the guestion of the age of the stars. For the mathematical models of the universe built by Pr. Tolman can expand and contract in cycles of many millions of years without running the risk of a “heat death,” that inevitable fate of the universe that classical thermodynamics in- Bists upon. Thus there is hope for an unending universe in the studies by Dr. Tolman. N the relativistic cosmos that best fits space and time outside this lttle corner of the uni- verse, Dr. Tolman finds that it is possible, as it were, to use energy and have it too. The time-honored conception of energy run- ning down hill, known as the second law of thermodynamics or the conservation of ehergy, which is law in the ordinary physical world, is so changed in the relativistic thermodynamics that a model universe could expand and con- tract over and over without arriving at the point where there is no more energy to use. Painting in mathematical equations pictures ot several ideal universes, Dr. Tolman finds that light, heat and other radiations would flow out in space, and matter would be annihilated, just as is the case in the actual universe; yet these events which are usually considered quite final and irreversible, are capable of being re- peated again and again when viewed from the standpoint of the relativity theory. Abbe Lemaitre recently put forth the novel hypothesis that the universe had its beginning in a unique atom with a mass equal to all the mass of the universe and a radius very close to zero. The whole universe would be pro- duced by the disintegration of this primeval atom, much as radium now disintegrates from its radioactivity. This process would cause an expansion of the universe. Another possibility suggested by Sir James Jeans is that the universe retains its size, while mankind and all material bodies shrink uni- formly. ‘This would account for the red shift in the spectra of the nebulae by the fact that the atoms that emitted the light millions of years ago were larger than the present-day atoms with which light is measured. The end of the universe in this case would come when all matter has shrunk to nothing. smoke bush. Vision focused on a slip of white paper appearing to cling between two of the feathery and efulgent blossoms that give the shrub its name. The lost letter, perhaps? I:a- stantly Alice retrieved it. Without compunc- tion she read the bold, meticulous handwriting before her: “Ann, dear heart: White caps are racing one another in from old Atlantic this morning. A pretty sailing breeze, my love. The kind that bellys out a big mainsail, stiffens jib and tops’ls and sends a skipper scooting for home on the edge of the horizon, or wherever, perchance, may be his port of call. I'm minded, dear, to- day of the afternoon we raced against an off- shore wind like this down in Jakie Winslow’s meadow land. ’'Twas the week before we mar- ried, Ann. Remember? You beat me to the woodland, you imp, and then you stopped and smiled that perky little smile of yours. I couldn’t help kissing you, could I? ’'Twas the first time we kissed. Maybe you've forgotten. I have not, And every time after that was a first time to me, Ann. You're with me today; on my bench above the sea. We talk. We hold hands as we did that honeymoon month. Ann, is it possible that some day—somewhere—we might . HEN the wind had swooped from window to window, bearing this unfinished love letter out to the smoke bush. Alice stared down through the glorious vista of pines at the blue water below—stared a long time. “Can love last like that?” she murmured. Her thoughts raced back over the recent hodi- day at the shore, encompassing the grave, ador- ing gaze of Gavin Driscoll, whom she had swum and played about with every day—the “sample sweetheart” she had spoken to Capt. Daddy about. Was Gavin capable of a great devotion such as this letter showed? Was she? ‘Was any one but Capt. Daddy? More than ever Alice wished to know why the letters were not mailed. She strolled toward the old man’s bench on an impulse and found him seated there erectly, arms precisely folded, eyes forever on the beckoning ocean. Alice sat down beside him. Conscience twigged her concerning the lost let- ter. She salved it with the knowledge that he had written another and that retaining the escaped one might aid her in tracing out this lovable mystery. “Capt. Daddy, don’t be angry, will you? Il mind my business if you say so; but—I wish you'd confide in me. Tell me why you write so often to some one and never mail the letters. We're friends. You're like a father. I never knew mine. Oh, Captain, I'd like to help you be really happy instead of make-believe happy. I might, you know,” she added quaintly. Understanding flashed between old eyes and young eyes. “Alice, honey, you're as sweet as a neat, new schooner nosing upwind on ’er maiden voyage. SR NN N Illustrated by Stokie Allen. Why, you see, I just reckon nobody’s much in terested in an old sailor. I live what the stor pbooks call a dream life, I guess. You're likg my Ann, Alice.” “It's she you write to, isn’t it?” the girl sai softly. “True, Alice.” “Ix she.. ... isisheideatd: “I don't know, Alice.” Tones terrible wit} tangible longing. “Tell me, Capt. Daddy.” He unfolded massive arms, reached over ang patted one of Alice’s small white hands wit one of his heavy, capable, gnarled ones. “Perhaps ’twill help to tell ye; an’ 'twill tak no longer than luffn’ up to drop anchor. My my, Alice—ye're like a rainbow at sea after 4 shower and blow under sunshine—so young a neatly rigged an’ pretty——" “you've kissed the Blarney Stone, like all th rest, Capt. Daddy,” Alice broke in. ‘“Twas like this, my dear. We were rarg sweethearts, Ann and myself. We married o my month’s leave from the ship. We loved eac! other dearly. We set up housekeepin’ in a lit tle cottage by the shore. Ah, we were the happ couple. I was of a mind then to leave the sed an’ get me a shore job; but Ann, bless her, shd wanted to see me a skipper even though it nig broke her heart to think o’ me gone most 0’ tig time.” Capt. Daddy paused to reflect. “An was o' the land. No sailors in her family; sq she did not know the sea. She trusted it, likd most landfolks do. A sailor never does, Alice He knows the sea can be as fickle an’ evil a; many an old man’s young wife. “Alice, 'tis nigh on time for ye to be clicki away at the keys again. T1l hurry! Anyway they’d never mind if ye were two minutes late.’ “Who cares, Capt. Daddy.” “Yes, lass. I went back aboard my ship ong June evening. I was a boatswain’s mate then It tore my heart out to leave Ann. Many’s thq Out of the T’ Ccontinued from Third Page sound program of international finance to fol Jow the short moratorium. It is essential thaf] we frame that program with regard to thd capacity of our debtors to pay. “Third. Let us press for effective results fro: the coming disarmament conference. “Fourth. Stretch and spread employment to the utmost, according to the special condition of each industry, rotate employment, reassurq as far as possible against the fear of sudden dis missal and study #ll devices that cushion un employment. “Fifth. Let us frame our tax requirements tc spread justly and fairly where it can best borne witheut injury. Correct the capital gains provision, which it has been proved sus pends a free market on all kinds of propert; and securities. “Sixth—and this is most important, it seemg to me—we should revise the 40-year-old anti trust laws. “Seventh. We should have a permanent polic of economy in national expenditures and give